Exactly 449 years before, William Shakespeare, the most celebrated and widely read English poet and playwright, was born on April 23, 1564 to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden at Stratford-upon-Avon during Elizabethan era. The genius of the first order, who penned 38 plays and 154 sonnets, is an immortal legend in English literature. For those who studied English literature, Shakespeare has been the most sought after author, and without whose study perhaps no university in the world grants a degree. His early life, though little obscure, shows he was baptized on April 26 1564, studied at King's New School in Stratford and married Anne Hathaway in 1582 when he was just 18. As an artist, Shakespeare had established himself as an actor and playwright in London when he was 28, and had already finished Henry VI part I, II and III — one of his historical plays. Richard III and Comedy of Errors, he wrote in 1593, and before turning 30 he had five major plays to his credit. In his early career, he wrote comedies and historical plays before a more mature Bard of Avon turned to tragedies. In all, he penned 16 comedies, 10 histories and 12 tragedies. If his comedies were widely popular, his tragedies created stir in the Elizabethan society. Unfortunately, while Shakespeare was admired and condemned during 17th and 18th century, the recognition worldwide that Shakespeare possesses today came late in 19th century when a systemic study of his works began.
Most of the early criticisms on Shakespeare were directed mainly at the plot structure, for example, his style of mixing comedy and tragedy and his carelessness in maintaining the unities of time and place, as prescribed in the rules of classical drama, though Samuel Johnson defended him on the question of rules, primarily on the question of unity of time, place and action saying that no one considers stage play as real life event. August Wilhelm Schlegel, the German poet, was the translator and critic of the Bard of Avon, who, in his “Lecture on Dramatic Art and Literature,” first explained the structural unity of Shakespeare's plays. Later it was S T Coleridge, widely famous for his commentary on the opening scene of Hamlet, who, in his “Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and Other Old Poets and Dramatists” elaborated the concept of unity of time and place and lauded Shakespeare for his unity of action or unity of feeling. If Samuel Johnson in his “Preface to Shakespeare” attacked Shakespeare's moral propriety in the 18th century, George Bernard Shaw in “Dramatic Opinions and Essays” severely criticized the Bard of Avon for the “emptiness of his philosophy and his vulgar prejudices” in the 20th century. However, both Johnson and Dryden praised Shakespeare for a fecund imagination, which is unique in his artistic premises. Albeit some of his early plays might justly be charged with frivolous use of language, Shakespeare criticism in 20th century offers praise on him for sounder use of language in later plays, which added depth and resonance of meaning. Foremost among critics was John Dryden, who in his “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” blamed Shakespeare for corrupting the language with false wit, puns, and ambiguity, calling his language as “irregular” while S T Coleridge praised him for using “the language of nature.” In 2002, David Crystal and Ben Crystal highlighted the linguistic side in their work “Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion,” while in 2006, N F Black wrote a comprehensive book titled “Shakespeare's Non-Standard English: A Dictionary of His Informal Language,” which is full of interesting information about the linguistics aspect of Shakespearean plays. Scholars like T W Baldwin in “William Shakespeare's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke” provided an account of Elizabethan grammar school curriculum and how it shaped Shakespeare's mind On Shakespeare's characters, it was Samuel Johnson who initiated a broad analysis of each of his famous character, while A C Bradley, the most influential critic every student of Shakespearean studies for exam, in his “Shakespearean Tragedy” has depicted the characters of Bard of Avon as real people to which one of his critic, L C Knights wrote an essay “How many children had Lady Macbeth?” to discredit his portrayal. There is rhyme about the significance of Bradley: I dreamt last night that Shakespeare's ghost Sat for a civil service post The English paper for that year Had several questions on King Lear Which Shakespeare answered very badly Because he hadn't read his Bradley William Hazlitt in “Characters of Shakespeare's Plays” expanded the subject and called each Shakespearean character as unique, while Charles Lamb in “Tales from Shakespeare” presented 36 out of 38 plays in two volumes in the story form, but he broadly spoke about characters in his famous essay “On the Tragedies of Shakespeare Considered with Reference to Their Fitness for Stage Presentation.” In this essay, Lamb goes on to say, “The Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted.” The highly acclaimed work “Literary Fat Ladies: Rhetoric, Gender, Property” by Patricia Parker offered a sophisticated approach to the modern studies of Shakespeare. In 20th century, the tendency of Shakespearean criticism was to abandon both the study of character as independent personality and the assumption that moral considerations can be separated from their dramatic and aesthetic context. The plays were increasingly viewed in terms of the unity of image, metaphor, and tone. In her landmark work, ‘Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us', Caroline Spurgeon has made a careful classification of Shakespeare's imagery. At the same time, Earnest Jones adopted Freudian approach in “Hamlet and Oedipus” to investigate the psychological side of Shakespeare's character. The question over Shakespeare's literary genius was discussed publicly in 1848 when Joseph C Hart in his book “The Romance of Yachting” claimed that “Shakespeare merely adapted the works of more educated playwrights, making them popular by adding the occasional crude joke”. The criticism and controversies around Bard of Avon continue in the present times, and with them are coming startling revelations about the genius. We have grown up reading the question over the authorship of Shakespearean and no less than 80 authors were attributed to have written his plays, most notable among them are Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Christopher Marlowe. In 2012, BBC published a news report that according to Oxford University Professors Laurie Maguire and Dr Emma Smith, there was co-author of “All's Well That Ends Well,” citing the logic that majority of plays written in Elizabethan era had more than one writer. And just last month, researchers from UK's Aberystwyth University claim in a paper that is to be delivered at the Hay literary festival in Wales in May that Shakespeare was a ruthless businessman who grew wealthy by hoarding grains during a time of famine. We have controversy over Cobbe portrait, the painting, raising question over Shakespeare's sexuality, a subject of academic debate, a sub though Professor Stanley Wells, one of the world's leading Shakespeare experts, announced in 2009 that he was 90 percent certain the portrait is that of the playwright. Shakespeare's sonnets, in which he addressed a young man as “Fair Lord” and the sonnets are dedicated to “Mr. W H” are source of speculation whether he was a bisexual. On the positive side, learners of Shakespeare can avail a plethora of valuable literature on the subject. One such seminal work is the 2001 edition of “The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare” edited by Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells. Folger Shakespeare Library is the world's biggest library on the Bard of Avon containing. — SG
